Season 6 Episode 5: What To Do With Your Money

Where does your money go? Are those places rooted in your values?  Are you in the driver’s seat when it comes to your money, or have you relinquished control to someone else?

Our relationship with money is a reflection of our relationship with ourselves.  When it aligns with our values we can do great things in the world!  But how? On this episode of Coaching and a Cup of Tea with Mummabear, Money Mastery Coach Shannon Brome-Ward joins Master Certified Life Coach Melissa Wiggins to talk about how to create money, how to manage it, and grow it, without guilt, without shame and without judgement.  Grab a cuppa and listen in.  

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Melissa Wiggins  00:44

Hello, lassies Welcome to coaching and a cup of tea with Mama Bear, I have a very special guest who I'm very, very excited to introduce to you this whole season, we have been talking about money mindset, how women can make more money. And today we're actually going to talk about what are some of the things we can actually do if we have money, which is why I have Shannon Ward here. Because not only does she talk on her Instagram page, and with her clients about money, main say her real real gift to this universe of lassies is what do we do once we actually make the money. And last episode, I talked about how I love to give money away to charity, how that is a part of freedom for me that I love to do. But today, Shannon, would you introduce yourself and just tell everybody listening how amazing you are and why you're on this podcast?

Shannon Brome-Ward  01:44

Oh, my gosh, thank you so much, Melissa. My name is Shannon Brome-Ward, and I'm a Money Mastery coach. And my whole job and desire about going out and talking about money is to kind of release that stigma that we have around money. I mean, it is so taboo. It is either we don't want to talk about it if we have it. And we don't want to talk about it if we don't have it, right. So primarily, I work with folks who are six figure earners, but they're living paycheck to paycheck. And for anybody who's made six figures or more, and they still find that they're struggling with why they don't have any money. And they Yeah, they can pay their bills. And that's great. But there's never anything left over. And there's a lot of stress around that. So I really work with folks on the mindset, but also the management and the mastery of money. Because there's a lot of stuff that we don't learn in school, from our families from our friends, because we don't talk about it, that really we can set ourselves up. So that money is being made for you while you're sleeping. 

Find the FULL Transcript here: Season 6 Episode 5: What To Do With Your Money

Transcript

Melissa Wiggins  00:44

Hello, lassies Welcome to coaching and a cup of tea with MummaBear,.I have a very special guest who I'm very, very excited to introduce to you this whole season, we have been talking about money mindset, how women can make more money. And today we're actually going to talk about what are some of the things we can actually do if we have money, which is why I have Shannon Ward here. Because not only does she talk on her Instagram page, and with her clients about money, main say her real real gift to this universe of lassies is what do we do once we actually make the money. And last episode, I talked about how I love to give money away to charity, how that is a part of freedom for me that I love to do. But today, Shannon, would you introduce yourself and just tell everybody listening how amazing you are and why you're on this podcast?

Shannon Brome-Ward  01:44

Oh, my gosh, thank you so much, Melissa. My name is Shannon Brome-Ward, and I'm a Money Mastery coach. And my whole job and desire about going out and talking about money is to kind of release that stigma that we have around money. I mean, it is so taboo. It is either we don't want to talk about it if we have it. And we don't want to talk about it if we don't have it, right. So primarily, I work with folks who are six figure earners, but they're living paycheck to paycheck. And for anybody who's made six figures or more, and they still find that they're struggling with why they don't have any money. And they Yeah, they can pay their bills. And that's great. But there's never anything left over. And there's a lot of stress around that. So I really work with folks on the mindset, but also the management and the mastery of money. Because there's a lot of stuff that we don't learn in school, from our families from our friends, because we don't talk about it, that really we can set ourselves up. So that money is being made for you while you're sleeping. And I like to call it sleep money, right?

Melissa Wiggins  03:00

Sleep money, yeah. Sleep Money, so good.

Shannon Brome-Ward  03:08

money out there money that you're making while you're sleeping. So I'm really excited to be here because I know that your audience is really a group of really powerful women who are running their businesses running their households running their lives. And, you know, if you own a business, then you've got to talk about money. You got to talk about it.

Melissa Wiggins  03:30

I got chills, because I really only started talking about money probably about a year ago. And it was really because and like most things, right? We get so inspired by our clients and the challenges they have. And then we become total nerds and like research on all the things that they need, right? Because we want to be better for them. But at the same time, I started to dig into like, what was my view on money and why was I in the certain position I was with money. And one of the things that really caught my eye on your social media was this post that you wrote about impulsivity around money. And I think for women, it's just so easy for us to be like on our phone or kids needs something somebody we ran out of something for the house, it's so easy to just start to get into that impulse spending of money. And I just love how you talk about mastery of money like that terror I'm just I'm such a narrative excites me because I want to be a master at all of the things. What do you think helps with impulsivity and what kind of things would you suggest for a client who maybe had a hard time with that?

Shannon Brome-Ward  04:43

Yeah, you know, what I found with women who claim to say that their spending is really impulsive. What they're really looking for is a level of spontaneity, with their money like permission to spend money, but what ends up happening is because They're spending money on everybody else for everything else doing all the things. And the only time they have fun with money is if they do the little sneaky impulsive spends. And what I like to do is if we're looking at somebody's, you know, budget, for example, I build that in, I believe in money for what you want to spend it on. Whether if it's, you know, you like to have massages, and like, well, let's put that in there. Right? So it doesn't feel like yeah, one weekend, you just went crazy. And you bought all the clothes and spent all the money and decorated everything in the room and got your nails done and did all this and then you felt guilty afterwards. I don't want you to tie the emotion of spending money with guilt. I don't want those to go together. So I really want you to build in that enjoyment with money. So it isn't always marred with this feeling of regret, which is usually what happens when you do those impulsive spins. Wow, yeah.

Melissa Wiggins  06:06

I'd started doing where I would like put things in my car, but only purchase on a Friday after I reviewed everything because I found I was one of those impulsive spenders. And I started writing posts around saying like, I am a financially responsible women, right, like trying to make good decisions around money. And sort of like you're talking about, I don't want to have the guilt and shame after I spend, right? Like, what's the point of that?

Shannon Brome-Ward  06:34

Yeah, yeah, no, and you don't want to have that feeling at all. But I think that if we also categorize money and put it into a few buckets, then you will release the guilt and shame around spending. Listen, money is meant to be spent, that's one of the things you're supposed to do with it. So that's completely fine. But if you allow yourself money that you can spend freely, money that you can invest money that you can donate, and money that you can save, if you cover all of those bases, and in different seasons in life, you're gonna have different ratios, right? There are going to be times when you can spend more and invest less, and vice versa, donate more, save less, whatever the case may be. But if you're doing a little bit of all of those things, you really eliminate a lot of the gilt with any one of those categories. Right?

Melissa Wiggins  07:27

So you like really help women get down to like the practical, nitty gritty of like, here's what your actual budget looks like,

Shannon Brome-Ward  07:35

I do that I do that because I think it's important, first and foremost, to really be grounded and how you create money, because there's three things, you have to create it, you have to manage it, and you have to grow it. So the creation of money, I'm sure the women in your group are really, that's what they do in your audience, you are helping them with their businesses, they're entrepreneurs, creating money is important. That's what they have to do they have to hone in on that. But the second thing is the management of the money, because we know a lot of women who have created a lot of money, and then they're like, Where's my money? Where did all that money go? I have clients who brought in a million dollars over the few years, and they have nothing to show for it. And it's because they've gotten that creation part down pat, but the management piece isn't established yet. And then once you are able to manage it, and that's where the budget comes in. You know, it doesn't have to be restrictive. You just have to be able to know what's coming in and what's going out. Right?

Melissa Wiggins  08:42

Yeah, I love that post. You did that. What do I own? What do I do? What do I air? And what do I say? And I was like, Oh, those are such good questions. Shannon.

Shannon Brome-Ward  08:53

It's true, you need to know you got to look at these things it shows

Melissa Wiggins  08:58

you need to know. And I think like I as a mindset coach, right? As a life coach, we spend a lot of time on, you know, the sort of moving women to make more of the decisions on their own and learning how to create the money, right, like moving away from the scarcity mindset, but then it's like, okay, this part in the season of the podcast, what No, we've given you how to enhance your relationship with money. We've talked about why it's important for women to make money, right? And now it's like, Alright, what do we do to like, manage it and grow it? And I'm like, I know who can tell us how to do that. Shannon can tell us how to do that.

Shannon Brome-Ward  09:38

It's so good. Because you know, one of the interesting things that you just said was, you know, talking about your relationship with your money, your relationship with money is a reflection of your relationship with yourself.

Melissa Wiggins  09:48

Yep, so good. It is tied

Shannon Brome-Ward  09:51

to your relationship with yourself and a lot of the times the reason why women have relinquished their power with money, you is because there's this lack of confidence, and this lack of belief that they're responsible and able to make these hardcore serious decisions, right? And so they often defer those decisions to other people. And take a look at the people who are in control of your money. If your CPA, your financial adviser, your financial coach, the your bookkeeper, whom ever your banker, whom ever touches your money doesn't reflect you, then I want you to just question that. Is it an older man,

Melissa Wiggins  10:35

you're just like blowing my mind. You're just like blowing my mind. Because like, I just, I, I'm relinquishing your power. Oh, my gosh, we do that. Absolutely. And like, so much of the studies and the things I've re preparing for this season, preparing to talk about women and money was just like how much and how many decisions we hand over to our significant other to the other person. And, you know, we don't know what it costs to run the house, and we don't know what it is that's owed on the mortgage. And now we're moving into being these badass, stay at home moms who are bringing in six and seven figures. And for the first time in our lives being like, Oh, shit, like, I gotta like, figure this out, if I want to be successful here?

Shannon Brome-Ward  11:22

Absolutely, absolutely. Because listen, you cannot give over all of the personal finances, and then decide that, okay, I'm gonna run this business and run all the finances, in my business, you're working with the same brain, right? So if you don't trust yourself to run the personal finances in the household, then you what you're telling yourself is you don't trust yourself to run the finances of your business, what is

Melissa Wiggins  11:47

one thing you would tell the listeners to say, this is how you should manage your money.

Shannon Brome-Ward  11:53

I love to get people in the driver's seat. So for example, what I mean by that is, I want you to determine, and I know you asked for, like this action at the end, but we're going to, I'm going to put it in right now.

Melissa Wiggins  12:06

Let's do it, I

Shannon Brome-Ward  12:08

always want people to be proactive, right? I want you to plan the money, what you're gonna do with it before it comes in. And then I want you to evaluate, track it and evaluate what you actually did with it when it arrived. So one of the things that I would tell everybody to do, especially the entrepreneurs, tell me, between September and December 31, how much money you're going to create. And I want you to account for every single penny of that, before you make it. So if that means how much you're going to pay for taxes, all of your business expenses, what you're going to pay yourself, what you're going to save, you know, in the business, if you're going to keep a cash flow, what you're going to invest, if you're going to donate your some money to charity, I want you to really look at the bolus of money you're going to create over the next four months, and actually plan it out. And this is something that most people do not do. They don't do it. No. And there are a couple of reasons for that. And it's understandable, right? If you're to look at what you're going to create for the rest of the year, if you're an entrepreneur, that oftentimes creates some resistance, because people are like, I don't know, I don't know exactly what I'm gonna make. If they don't hit that target, then they're gonna be disappointed. So they're preventing, or at least trying to prevent the disappointment upfront. But what happens is, if you decide, hey, I'm going to make in the next four months, 20,000 50,000 $100,000, once you decide that you're going to make that money and you start outlining what you're gonna do with it, you will take the steps to create it.

Melissa Wiggins  13:54

I love that so much. I believe that so deeply.

Shannon Brome-Ward  13:57

Absolutely. I mean, your mind will become creative, because you're gonna see what you can do with that 2050 $100,000. And you're gonna want it and you're going to figure out how to create it. I love it versus trudging along every week, every month. Next thing you know, it's December, maybe you still made the $100,000. But then you're saying what did I do with it, throwing you back into that guilt cycle, that shame cycle?

Melissa Wiggins  14:26

And also, like you said earlier, relinquishing your power over it too, right, because you're not in control of where it's going and what it's doing.

Shannon Brome-Ward  14:34

Absolutely, absolutely. So it's really about putting you in the driver's seat and determining what you're going to do with that money ahead of time. And that should always be

Melissa Wiggins  14:46

the case. And you also help women coach women to grow it, right.

Shannon Brome-Ward  14:52

Absolutely. So we talked about the management piece, right? So we need to know we got to figure out what's coming in. We got to decide what we're going to do with it. And we're going to track that along the way because that data is going to tell us, hey, we're spending a lot here and not enough here. Yeah, we're not donating, we're not investing, we're not doing something here, what's going on, and we're doing that in real time. So that if there's things that we don't like, is that it's not leading us in the direction that we want to go in, we can course correct immediately. So not a year to five years have gone down the road, you've made a million bucks, and you don't know where it is. So that piece, the management piece is very important. The growth piece is the part I love the most, because that's the piece where you're making the sleep money. Right. So when you're starting off, you're taking even a little bit of money, even if you don't have a lot, and you're starting to learn how money works. You're learning about investments, you're learning about compound interest, you're learning about how time is your greatest asset, but it's also a non renewable resource. So one of the things I really encourage all the women to do is start now, start right now,

Melissa Wiggins  16:10

this is your action item, this is their action item today, okay? Like we're, we told you how to fix your mind earlier in the season. Now, we're gonna tell you in order to manage it, and in order to grow it start right now,

Shannon Brome-Ward  16:23

start right now. And I think that it's so important for you to have a basic understanding at the least, about what you're investing your money in, whether it's a stock market, whether it's real estate, whatever, even in your own business, when you're investing your money, you should have an understanding of what you're doing with the money. So I shudder when I hear people are working with financial advisors, and I start asking them some basic questions. And they have no clue, no clue that pains me what their money is doing. It's it, it's scary at it, it's very, very scary. And they're also paying a lot of money to this financial advisor. Now, financial advisors are great, you may not want to look at your money at all, because you know, you're handing it over to someone, but you should be able to have an intelligent conversation about what direction you want your money to go in. And what you want to do with your money when you want, right, because I don't believe in this retirement age thing. This 6567 I, I hate the concept of it. But I do love the concept of what I call my your work optional life. Right?

Melissa Wiggins  17:39

That's beautiful. I love that. Yeah, when you choose

Shannon Brome-Ward  17:43

that you either want to work part time or don't want to work at all want to work from home want to work in Portugal, as opposed to the United States, whatever, right? You want to create a situation where you have the option to choose. But what most financial advisors do is that they say, Okay, you're gonna return 67 Until we put your money in this, and we'll see you back then you're now in a meaning you should have this amount. No, what if at 50, you decide, hey, I don't want to do this full time anymore. And I want to travel six months out of the year, three months, I want to be in the south of the United States. And the other three months, I'll be in the northeast, I don't know. You know what I mean, you create and curate the life that you want to have. And so that's why I think it's so very important for a woman to get started immediately, and to have an understanding of how to invest. Because once you put money in the hands of women, they make fantastic decisions and outperform men in investments. Time and time and time again, there's so many studies,

Melissa Wiggins  18:52

I have like hundreds of like literally hundreds,

Shannon Brome-Ward  18:55

hundreds of studies. And they also make the world a better place. Right? Because

Melissa Wiggins  19:02

last episode was all about was about when we look at how much money women give away and where they give it and what they do with it. We put it back into our families 90% of it. The rest of it, we give away like we donate like we are. That is why I keep saying like No, you need to get out and make money, stop offering all of your goodness for free.

Shannon Brome-Ward  19:26

Absolutely stop doing that because you're devaluing your, a.

Melissa Wiggins  19:31

And then I've done that I've done that. I've given away so much time for free time for free time for free. And it's like I want to be that voice now to say like, you don't have to do that you can make the money and then decide where you want to put it.

Shannon Brome-Ward  19:47

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because you're perpetuating this belief that you're an under earner. Yeah. When you're giving away stuff for free. And it's so interesting because I've met a lot of women who are like why don't Want to make a lot of money? And I'm like, okay, that's fine. But I love to show examples of what you can do with a lot of money. Totally. Because I think the examples that they see tend to be self serving and frivolous to them. And they're like, Well, if you're gonna make a lot of money, you're just going to be a big jerk. Why would I do that? But again, there's so many ways in which all of the money that you create, can be shared to help other people. It's a beautiful thing.

Melissa Wiggins  20:32

Yeah, the real question is not Do you want to make money? The real question is, do you want to make the world a better place? And if the answer is yes, then go make some frickin money.

Shannon Brome-Ward  20:40

Exactly, exactly. And, you know, is also absolutely nothing wrong with making a lot of money as well, so that you can enhance your life. I am all about that. I love that you

Melissa Wiggins  20:54

write about that on your page, because I also spend my money on traveling. So we actually were recently talking about the boys were talking about joining some baseball thing. And I said, Okay, so our family has chosen to be the family that goes to Europe for the summer. So we did Germany, in London, in Scotland this summer, okay, we do that, because we don't do travel baseball, because we don't do the camps, right, like we choose not to go to. And there's nothing wrong with those things. Those are awesome. But they're just not for us. And also explaining to my children, we are not under Financial possession to have both. So we have to choose, right.

Shannon Brome-Ward  21:37

And I love what you're just highlighting here, because this is what I speak about all the time, you need to determine what you value. And then I want you to use your money towards the things you value. Now, if you guys value, these experiences of traveling and traveling throughout Europe all summer long over travel baseball, that's fine. But if you have to make a choice, if you're still at the position where you're making those choices, and guess what, folks, you're always going to be making choices, you could have 10 million, 100 million, it doesn't even matter, you're always going to be making a choice. And it's always rooted in what you value. So I love that. Because what I find when people come to me, and they feel stressed, and they're doing all the things, and I'm like, you don't even care about this thing. No, but you want to do this thing, this is your happy place. This is where you want to spend your time, and inadvertently your money. So why not get rid of those things, you don't even care about them. And sometimes people just need to really hone in on what they value so that their money goes towards those things. And they're much happier.

Melissa Wiggins  22:44

I love that so much. And we're speaking the same language and my six month coaching program, we spend over a month working on values, and essentially becomes the anchor of how we make decisions, who we say yes to who we say no to makes decisions on money, all of that. And like I have found when women have those anchors of knowing deeply what their values are, and then loving it, these decisions become much easier.

Shannon Brome-Ward  23:11

100% 100%. And you know, I always think because people when they come to me with money, they're always like, they have the stories of all these mistakes they've made. They're really feeling badly about them, or they're fearful of potential mistakes that they may make. Right? Yeah. And I really and truly believe that you can never make the wrong decision. But you can always make the decision, right? So if you trust yourself, if you are rooted in your values, like what you teach a lot of the women in your group, then like you said, your decisions will be made quicker. There'll be simpler, there'll be easier on you. And you'll always be able to make the decision, right? If it doesn't go down the path that you originally thought it would or should. So let's it's completely fun. I love it. I love it.

Melissa Wiggins  24:03

What would you say if I say to you, all right, so now I you know, I've got my money mindset ready. I've got a good relationship with money. I've got a budget, I know exactly where my money is going. And now I want to grow I think I think spend a couple of 100 bucks every month trying to grow it like Where would I start?

Shannon Brome-Ward  24:23

Yeah. So I would like to know from you like what are your goals? Right? What are your long term goals? What do you how long? Are you planning on running your business? What is it going to look like in five years? 10 years, 20 years, that kind of idea? Because that also starts to give me an idea of how you want to curate your life. And with you know, moms especially where are your kids going to be? Where are you going to be you know what I mean? Like so we want to start creating money in a way that you can access it at different time points. So for example, some people are like, I'd I don't want to deal with real estate, like physical real estate at all whatsoever. But that is an option that I would propose. Like, are you considering investing in real estate? Long term rentals, short term rentals? Where would you invest? What are you thinking about? You know what I mean? Is it something where we start, we buy a two bedroom condo, and then we ramp up to this huge 6000 square foot Mountain House? Like, what are we talking about? Right. The other thing is, and I like to diversify. So the other thing I might say is, okay, let's talk about the stock market. What are you thinking in terms of when you're no longer working? What is your lifestyle going to look like? How much money do you think you'll need to have? Let's start creating? Are you in the habit of saving right now? Because if you are great, let's take some of that. And let's start investing it. And we started looking at what you should invest in? Are you looking at index funds, some people, you know, what, what, what can you handle? What can you not handle, you know what I mean? And I really start to educate folks on the different ways that they can invest. Some people, they're like, you know, what, I want to buy land, I don't want to build anything, I just want to buy land and keep it there. And it appreciates over time. So I really start to look at what is your life gonna look like over the next 510 1520 years or so? And what do you want this money for? And a lot of times, the other thing that I like to talk about is, are we creating a legacy? Are we creating generational wealth? Are you going to leave money for your children? Are you planning on doing that? Are you even before that? Are you planning on paying for college? Are they going to college? You know, we've got to it's very, very personal, right? And so that's why I'm like, it can't be cookie cutter, you really have to be rooted in what's important to you, and where are you worried they're a particular stage in life.

Melissa Wiggins  26:51

I love it. So good. It's so good. And and the other thing that

Shannon Brome-Ward  26:55

I really want people to know is you don't need a lot to start, I always talk about the $12.50 that I used to invest every two weeks. And I started with 25 bucks a month, and I'm not gonna lie, it was a stretch, like I was like, but I it was the discipline to put that $12.50 Because it was a minimum back then I'm like 25 bucks, you had to invest. And I, it was the best experiment that I didn't even realize that I was creating at the time. So I was investing this $12.50 every two weeks, I have never increased it. I just kept that going. And that's well over six figures. So I want people to really know that time is even more important than the amount that you contribute. Okay, so sterling is key.

Melissa Wiggins  27:42

I love it. I love it so much. Because I do think one of the things that you are doing a great job is on your social media is really dissipating that idea that women have including myself that I need $1,000 In order to make any impact, and you don't, and I just I love that you did that experiment like that is so good. And genius. And it's true, right? Like I'm always when I was in the nonprofit world, I have a nonprofit for pediatric cancer, I have a team that runs it now I don't run it anymore. But one of the things I would always say is like, you know, to in order to like push into getting invest like people to invest. And I would say, you know, give up a cup of coffee, like every other day or something, right? Like, it sounds so silly. But I mean, a Starbucks cup of coffee is like four or $5.

Shannon Brome-Ward  28:35

Absolutely, that's significant. And you find people's coffee a week is 25 bucks, that's 100 bucks, that's 100 bucks a month, it's 100 bucks a month. And I don't even recommend people start with 100 bucks a month. Because one of the things when I'm working with them, as I'm like showing them that we're gonna start with a little bit of money, I rather you understand where the money is going, what you're investing in, right, and you can't do all of the things at once. That's the one thing that I feel is so important for people to understand. I didn't invest in the stock market and buy properties and buy land. And then and then I didn't do all of those things at the same time. It was a slow process. And I did one thing and then the next next and then I just kept going and that's why starting is so key, because you can put it almost on autopilot. And like I said, it's making money while you're sleeping. Right. So that's growing for you. And the other thing for a lot of the moms out there, I want you to teach your children. I don't have girls, but especially your girls, I want you to teach your children to do the same. They can learn to invest as well. They can learn to save, invest, donate, and spend their money. And perfect example I have two boys they have completely different interests. Of course, there are individuals, one of them is a hardcore saver. The other one is a hardcore spender. But the one that spends on whatever he wants to spend on gets so much pleasure and enjoyment, and spending on those things, that is okay. That is what you're supposed to do. Money is meant to be spent. But he also has his little investments. He's also donating his soccer balls to kids that don't have soccer ball. And you know what I mean, and he's also saving some money for some short term things that are coming up soon that he wants to buy. So I think that as long as you're showing your children, these behaviors, and just set them up on the path, they're going to be okay, because I know a lot of moms are really nervous about what they're teaching their kids are not teaching them, depending on how you look at

Melissa Wiggins  30:57

Sure. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I think like, you know, when you you start doing the work around money, and why you think certain things about money, and you really look into that you just become so much more self aware about what you are teaching them just by your actions. And I'm very, like intentional about that. And I think that's another reason why knowing your values is so important, right? Because then you do get to sort of teach that to them and show them. My kids all have bank cards, and they can save in it and spend on it. And you know, it's the constant sort of pool and tug. They'll be like, Oh, how much do I have in my savings and the weekend, they all wanted to buy these, they're obsessed by basketball, my three boys, they all wanted to buy the basketball shoes. So my phone has the app where it tells them how much they have. And they're like, Ha, yeah, so that would mean, ya know, I can totally afford these. And I still have money in my savings. And like, I was just like, so cute to see their little means that nine and 10 and 11 years old, you know, pushing into some of those things when I, you know, I didn't have that education. And I'm just grateful to be able to be learning, right? I'm totally learning, but learning and showing them at the same time.

Shannon Brome-Ward  32:13

Yeah, absolutely. Wonderful. That is for them to be able to look at their bank account, make a decision, and a determination about what I want to do with my money and feel good about it. At that age. I know, it's cool, that kiss releases all of that money drama,

Melissa Wiggins  32:31

and we talk about money a lot. So they like and I and again, didn't grew up in a house where we talked about money, right? Like, and that's another thing I tried to be very open with them about, you know, because they'll be like, well, how much do you make? And what does the client charge you and blah, blah, blah, you know, like, all these kinds of things. And I tried to be as open as I can with kids of that age without them going to school and telling everybody my business. No, I didn't say that. I said six figures, not seven. And so it's just like, it's fun for me to be able to have that different dynamic with them. But also, like always trying to learn more from people like yourself, you know, like, I, I feel like I totally have the mindset that down. And I feel like my clients do as well. And now it's just like, Okay, so where do I send these incredible butterflies? When the No, no, all right, I can make money, I can totally create it. I know how to do that. Like, what next? How do I manage it? How do I grow it? And I'm just going to tell them to go to your page. And then that's it. That's done.

Shannon Brome-Ward  33:39

I love it. I love it. I just think it's so great that you're having these conversations in the house with your children. I encourage everybody to have these conversations. And, you know, it may bring up some uncomfortable feelings because I know growing up money was, you know, something that when they would say we can't afford it, right. But it's interesting, because now in retrospect, when I think about my parents, they'd say they can't afford it unless it was something they valued. So if it was education, suddenly the money was available, right? But anything else they said they couldn't afford it. And I'm always wary of I can't afford it they when we see that it really shuts down the creative centers in the brain. And when you see that in front of children, you're saying that's it as opposed to you know, how can we create the money to make this happen?

Melissa Wiggins  34:32

I also explain it to my kids like this i will say i budget for things and a month guys. And we have already Spain our fun money on going to the movies and going to fun sports so next month we'll have more fun money, but we don't have any more or less for this month because I did use to say that we can't afford it. And they would say to me, but we know you can afford it. We know you have money What are you so I was like Oh man, I've got to like figure I have a better way of saying this, listening with groceries, I can easily spend 800 a week on these four kids and their 17 friends that are over during the week, which I love. And I want to do I want to buy all the pizza and all the soft drinks and all of the things. But then it means when it comes to Saturday, Sunday, I'm going to be cooking in the house, and I'm not going to be eating out the whole time. And then they may say, Well, can we go somewhere for dinner? And my response won't be I can't afford it. My response will be, I've already used all of the money for groceries this week. Well, next week, we can go for dinner if you'd like to do that.

Shannon Brome-Ward  35:38

Absolutely, absolutely. And what is so key about what you're saying there too is, you're still making a choice, you will make a choice at six figures, you'll make a choice at seven figures, it doesn't matter. And it's okay to make that choice and be comfortable with it. And when it's rooted in your values. It's quite simple. It really is,

Melissa Wiggins  36:00

it's so true. Because like I will literally be in the grocery line. And I will see the $400 come up on the thing. And I feel no guilt and shame about it. I will be like I worked hard for this. And I know this food brings them so much joy with them and their friends. But there are other things that I don't feel like that about Shannon,

Shannon Brome-Ward  36:19

right? And that's so good. Because what you feel is really an indicator like that emotion that comes up is really an indicator of hey, wait a minute, is this something that is in line with my values? And while I'm with what's important to me, maybe not right? So to really tap into your that pit of your stomach or in your shoulders, wherever you feel, whatever it is that emotion is, that's really the indicator of hmm, maybe this isn't really something that needs to be in my value line.

Melissa Wiggins  36:50

I love it. It's so good. You're just like a wealth of knowledge, like tell everybody where they can find you. Where's the best way to work with you? Like, I really just think you could be so helpful to so many people more than you already are. Because people need this part two and part three of what to do with money and I just love it.

Shannon Brome-Ward  37:10

Yeah, thank you. I am at the whole budget on Instagram, you can find me there. That's the best place to really find me or the whole budget.com. I work with clients one on one. And I am also I have a small group. It's really intimate. It's called the money lounge where I only work with women and their women entrepreneurs. And we solely talk about how to do just that. I mean, most of them gotten the creation part down pat. But we talked about the management and the growth of money. And we talk about all the fun ways in which we want to use our money without guilt without shame without judgment. So I love to see people enjoying that. So they're

Melissa Wiggins  37:52

it's amazing. So fun. Thank you so much for your time, your brain sharing all of it with us your wisdom, your takeaway, the homework for people, I just like so appreciate it. And I'm very grateful. You took some time for my listeners.

Shannon Brome-Ward  38:08

I loved it. Thank you so much for having me.

Melissa Wiggins  38:10

Thank you